Tuesday, October 01, 2013

here i am

tap tap tap... is this thing on?

Well hello there! I know I kind of fell off the planet there for a bit. What can I say, September is busy season in BlogMother Land. Who are we kidding, it's always busy around here, but September is especially so.

Our local fair happens in September and as you may know Mike and I are now the new co-managers of the school fair portion. That represents thousands of pieces of art and school work from local students that all needs to be sorted, judged, recorded, hung and organized. Tables need to be set up and then taken down. Art work needs to be hung and then taken down.

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During the fair we're there to "babysit" the building making sure nobody tips over the pumpkins or makes off with some lego. We're also there to answer any questions, direct people to where the can find their child's artwork and explain how they can go about participating in next year's fair. Oh and give directions to the baby show. Nobody can ever find the baby show. Mike and I were there to unlock the building in the morning and lock it back up at the end of the evening.

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From Wednesday afternoon until Monday afternoon almost all of our waking moments were spent at the fair. It's nice now that the kids are older and they can volunteer with us. This year they helped with set up and take down. Also grateful for my Mom who I roped into being on the committee, but she also stayed with us and got the kids off the bus and to birthday parties and riding lessons and brought them to the fair to have some fun as well. She's the best.

Now that it's all over and packed away for another year I am sitting on a pile of paper work. All of those thousands of entries have a prize attached to them. Now I sort through the judging sheets and figure out how much each child is getting paid and then generate a pay out list for each school participating. That works out to around a thousand kids. It's an incredibly time consuming job that I fit in around work, riding lessons, meeting for other committees, laundry, dinner and so on.

So why would I do it? Why would anyone do it? That's a lot of my time I'm just giving away. Personally, I volunteer in general because I strongly believe if I can I should. I don't have a lot of cash to throw around to all the causes that matter to me, but I do have skills that can be put to good use. Also I love this! Truly. It's something I'm very passionate about. Once you see a child find their artwork with a ribbon on it and hear the excitement in their voice.. That's mine! I got a ribbon! I don't see how I'm ever going to get tired of that. If I can take a few hours from my life and give hundreds of kids that experience, well it seems like time well spent to me.

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As an added bonus it's time well spent with people I love. A large portion of our committee is family and the rest are all pretty great friends. So all those hours spent working and "babysitting" are spent with people I love spending time with anyway. Win win win.

All that being said, I'm rushing. I'm rushing to get through the paperwork, but I also have school stuff to get going for our parent council. I'm trying to delegate as much as I can, but tonight I could feel myself falling down the rabbit hole. Mike had declare my laptop off limits for the evening and insisted I sit down and watch a movie or something. It was good advice and I'm happy to let my favourite mental health professional know that I took it.

So what's up with you guys?

3 comments:

Lynn said...

I'm always so impressed with all the volunteering you and Mike do. I know it must be hugely appreciated by all the kids, and their families, involved in the fair. You rock!

September is also busy for us - but looking forward, we also have major projects on for every single weekend between now and Christmas. GAH. I recently read an article in praise of sitting-around-relaxing-together family time, and it sounded so good...but then, there's just so much other great stuff to be doing, you know? SIGH.

Julie said...

so good to hear from you!! i was starting to wonder. :) you have enough energy and a big enough heart to fill ten local fairs. what an inspiration. don't know how you do it.

Betsy Hart said...

You are doing a wonderful thing. I love to hear about how it's going. I have been just blogging, reading (lots!) and working. Not even doing much running.